Saturday, January 31, 2009

But Suddenly a guitar playing lad whose languid lean brings back the sunny south strikes up a tune all gay & bright & glad to keep the gall from biting in his mouth Then drowsy as the rain soft sad black feet dance in this juice joint on this city street

Some wag once said that the only thing characters do in Chekhov plays is wait for the train from Moscow.

1915 -- Thomas Merton lives, Pyrenees-Orientales, France.Radical pacifist US priest. "The Seven Storey Mountain,"describing his journey from Columbia University student daysto his decision to become a Trappist monk, was a best seller.http://www.merton.org/

1919 -- Scotland: Bloody Friday, The Red Clydeside, Glasgow:upwards of 60,000 demonstrators gather in George Square insupport of the strike; police mounted a vicious & unprovoked attack on the demonstrators, felling unarmed men &women with their clubs.

1923 -- Novelist/socialist Norman Mailer lives.

1924 -- George Popov (1900-1924) dies.Bulgarian teacher, poet, speaker & anarchist organizer & guerrilla. Popov took refuge in the mountains, formingguerrilla anarchist groups. When his hiding place was discovered,he committed suicide rather than fall into the hands of the army.

On 1 January Beloved & Respected ComradeLeader General Westmoreland said:

"Our forces have been able to detect impending major offensives & to mount spoiling attacks."

(Warning: This is the same sort of intellectual outfitrunning the current American war against terrorism.)

"We poured gasoline into the sawed off fifty-five gallon drums of shit; it mixed with the piss thatwas covering the shit. We then lit long sectionsof toilet paper & dropped them into the barrels,hoping for success."

— David Willson, "REMF" (Rear Echelon Mother Fucker)

1970 -- Bluesman Slim Harpo harps no more.

1971 -- US: Cold Day in Hell? The Winter Soldier Hearingsbegin in a Howard Johnson's motel in Detroit.

The veterans testify that the My Lai massacre was not an isolated incident & that American troops have committedatrocities. More than 100 veterans, in fact, testify to brutalUS acts. The proceedings capture little attention.

1980 -- Guatemala: Elias Barahona, official spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior, reveals the President, GeneralRomeo Lucas García, ordered police to set fire to theSpanish embassy with its occupants inside.

39 people are roasted alive, including 27 Indians peacefully occupying the embassy to denounce massacres in the Quiche region.

Barahona also claims a "Program of pacification" being carried out is based on a 420 page document drawn up by specialists in the US based on their experience in the Vietnam War.

In the first half of this year 27 university professors, 13 journalists, & 70 campesino leaders, mainly Indians, have been murdered.

The repression has special intensity for Indian communities in the Quiche region, where large oil deposits have recently been discovered.

1992 -- US: Post office issues a 29-cent W.E.B. du Bois stamp — the first Communist on an American stamp.

2003 -- British PM Blair meets with George W. Bushto plan war against Iraq.